1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic smear preparing apparatus for preparing a smear of a sample collected from a living body such as blood or bone marrow fluid and an automatic sample analysis system having the same.
2. Description of Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,779,982 describes an automatic blood smear preparing apparatus which automatically performs all the steps of smearing of a blood sample onto a slide glass and staining of the blood sample. This apparatus utilizes a cassette capable of carrying the slide glass and a stain solution therein. That is, the sample is smeared on the slide glass, the slide glass is held in the cassette and the stain solution is injected in the cassette to stain the smeared sample.
According to the conventional automatic blood smear preparing apparatus as described above, blood is dropped onto the slide glass and smeared thereon by using a spreader glass and then the spreader glass used is washed by immersing it into washing liquid contained in a washing bath. However, if the spreader glass is not washed enough, protein or the like remains thereon and it is difficult to prepare a satisfactory smear.